“We are a church that aspires to exist for the sake of those who are not already part of our fellowship”. This is the first line of the first set of five plumb lines that we recently adopted to help guide us towards the future to which we are being called.

Jesus called them together and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Matt 20:25-28)

Hi. My name is Eric Jacobsen, and in addition to being a pastor from Tacoma Washington, I am the President of the Synod Executive Council. I’m also a contributor to this blog, so if you are a regular reader, you may already know a bit about me and some of my random thoughts about life in ECO. Today, I wanted to combine two of these hats and use the blog forum to give you all an update from our latest meeting of the Council that took place just last week. Let me first introduce you to the members of the ECO Synod Executive Council:

Our neighbors, God's people

Feelings of dread

Rank in order (from most undesirable to least undesirable) the following experiences:

A root canal

An IRS audit

Your denomination’s synod meeting

Putting your dog down

There was a time in the not-too-distant past when ‘item C’ might have beaten out a few of these for the status of least desirable. I’m not kidding. I really used to dread going to denominational meetings. It’s not that denominational meetings were literally as painful as a root canal, but in my experience, they were painful in their own way. The pain I experienced had to do with the yawning gap between what could be and maybe what should be and what I actually experienced.
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Unflappable: The ability to remain cool and calm in the midst of a crisis.

For as long as I’ve served in ministry, unflappability has been a core aspect of my pastoral identity. Or, I should say that was a core aspect of my pastoral identity—until Holy Week 2013. That date will stand out in my memory as the time I was officially flapped.
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Striving to be missionally effective

"Local Churches Leave Denomination Over Homosexuality"

This is a headline I've been dreading ever since my church began the discernment process to determine whether we should leave our denomination. The last thing I want is for our congregation to be known in the community as "the church that hates gay people." For a church in a city that was recently voted “The Gayist City in America,” such a reputation could have a negative impact on our mission.
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